Alpha 25 Pre-release/Release Candidate Build Testing

[Stan`]

Here is the third 'Release Candidate' of Alpha 25 - Yaunā

We've entered Commit Freeze, which means we only now fix Release Blocker issues that we might yet find.

Downloads - Current bundles are for SVN revision 25840

• Linux data and build
• MacOS
• Windows

Things to note:

• Mind your mods -> they might introduce issues or Out Of Sync.
• Save your A24 config file somewhere, ideally.

Notable changes since the last bundle:

• Map Generation Issues fixed
• Autociv not cancelled when buildings are captured by the AI fixed
• Units glitching when gathering praise in Delenda Est
• Segfault fixes on Linux
• Translation fixes and credits.

Currently known issues:

• We've had a few crash reports. Please provide crash dumps or stack traces, when able.

What to do if I have an error or notice something weird?

Post your commands.txt (replay) and the interestinglog.html file from your folder. You can also reply to this thread.

What to do if the game crashes?

Update your crashlog.dmp and crashlog.txt  see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

What to do if I have an Out Of Sync?

You should go in your logs folder, find the replay (commands.txt at least), the mainlog/interestinglog and find the OOS dump folder. Zip all these files and upload them here.
We need the reports from two players to compare them: One OOS and one non-OOS players at least should upload their oos_dump files.

Things you may want to test (non-exhaustive)

1. Launch a random game
2. Launch a skirmish.
3. Connect to the lobby
4. Play on the lobby with someone
5. Launch Atlas and try things out there
6. Open Unit tests demo (To see if there any breakage in displaying entity's) (It's in scenarios)
7. Enable feedback and see if it works (Main menu) https://videos.pair2jeux.tube/videos/watch/ca45fa29-c120-487e-af9c-cf52020666ab
8. Connect to and use mod.io
9. Test replaying new games
10. Test Screenshots (F2)
11. Test Big Screenshots (Maj+F2)
12. Test hotkeys
13. Test Saving and loading a game.
14. Test Quickload/Quicksave

And of course playing games.

[alre]

As long as I can notice from up to date SVN, the charging bug hasn't been fixed. This completely trows out of balance the game for those players skilled enough to exploit it, or maybe those who aren't used to attack-move I guess. An arbitrary subset of players that understand the working of the game or just get how to exploit this faulted part of it.

from a MP point of view, this is definitely a release breaker.

In the lobby, @Angen said it may be hard to fix, so what's the plan? release the game with a knowingly broken balance?

[Stan`]

5 minutes ago, alre said:

from a MP point of view, this is definitely a release breaker.

In the lobby, @Angen said it may be hard to fix, so what's the plan? release the game with a knowingly broken balance?

Apparently it depends who you ask.

The plan is that if it's not fixed at the end of the week, we will move on with the release. Balance is always broken anyway and can always be better; If we can't fix it by then, it's unlikely it'll be fixed soon anyway.

Currently we don't know what caused it, we just know it was not visible in A24. If you want to help, you can try to figure out when it started occurring.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Apparently it depends who you ask.

The plan is that if it's not fixed at the end of the week, we will move on with the release. Balance is always broken anyway and can always be better; If we can't fix it by then, it's unlikely it'll be fixed soon anyway.

Currently we don't know what caused it, we just know it was not visible in A24. If you want to help, you can try to figure out when it started occurring.

I’m not familiar with the bug so feel free to ignore...but isn’t it caused formations with units running to get into place? It seems like making units only move at their walk speed would fix that. Players in previous alphas used to use formations to dance anyways. 

[Freagarach]

1 hour ago, alre said:

release the game with a knowingly broken balance?

One problem is that as long as we're in Feature Freeze no-one else can commit interesting stuff.

[Yekaterina]

De-Freeze?

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

I’m not familiar with the bug so feel free to ignore...but isn’t it caused formations with units running to get into place? It seems like making units only move at their walk speed would fix that. Players in previous alphas used to use formations to dance anyways. 

In this case it's the opposite. In the video below, units move to the point, detect the enemy, run towards it, kill it, stop there, then run back to the formation controller. My understanding is that the formation controller should move but doesn't.

 

Confirmed that the flag doesn't move triggering the run.

51 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

De-Freeze?

Not a good idea. Else you could have A25 in two years

[alre]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

Apparently it depends who you ask.

The plan is that if it's not fixed at the end of the week, we will move on with the release. Balance is always broken anyway and can always be better; If we can't fix it by then, it's unlikely it'll be fixed soon anyway.

Currently we don't know what caused it, we just know it was not visible in A24. If you want to help, you can try to figure out when it started occurring.

the bug came out somewhere between version 25698 and 25717. I don't remember how to build from source so I can't find a more specific pointer right now.

[Stan`]

If you are correct the only possible revision in

rP25717 Removes FFP shader program. Fixes #5791
rP25716 Don't open the template viewer when in special input state
rP25715 Add a hotkey to focus on the last attack alarm
rP25714 Removes old gui_* materials, replaced by a single canvas2d material.
rP25713 Replaces gui material by solid material in water waves rendering.
rP25712 Switches ShadowMap debug rendering to canvas2d material.
rP25711 Implements configurable cascade shadows.
rP25710 Don't store the camera pointer in the minimap
rP25709 Removes windows enumeration on Windows to retrieve HWND taking it from SDL and…
rP25708 Further Pushing tweaks: more customisable, longer ranges.
rP25707 New pikemen small shields.
rP25706 Improve the UVMap of some old rocks. They were looking very weird with some of…
rP25705 Fix some texture bug on tree_oak_new_c the uv was referencing some transparent…
rP25704 Uses canvas2d material for line drawing instead of gui_solid.
rP25703 [Windows] Automated build.
rP25702 Cleanups rP25698 which fixes rP25695. Sprites can not be inserted twice.
rP25701 Tweaks to the alpine RM biome
rP25700 Update for the Steppe RM biome
rP25699 Fix gamesetup player assignment issue when joining
rP25698 Hotfix rP25695

is:

rP25708 Further Pushing tweaks: more customisable, longer ranges.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP25708

Allegedly fixed by

rP25747 Fix speed glitch

https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP25747

[Silier]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

My understanding is that the formation controller should move but doesn't.

It would not move because formation controller was not told to attack but unit's did it individually.

Were they in defensive stance? In that case they would return to held position given by last player command while being still in formation they would run. However they could reform at place and then walk to held position as formation but current code about held position is rabbit hole more with formations.

Even if they would not be in defensive stance to go back to held position automatically reforming after attack/action (when members are idle again) while half of formation may be elsewhere will trigger run too.

Now reason why they run in formation, if they would stuck and need to catch up with formation and if they would not run they would never be able to.

Looking into the code I can see potential line, causing them run when they act by themselves but I need to check unitai. Previously it checked if they are tasked to move as formation, now it checks if they are member of formation. However check is now more correct so we need to fix unitai and formations what is long topic or bring back old logic and rename the function, but reforming will still trigger run.

We could disable running for formation members but they would never catchup so that's probably not good idea eighter.

[Silier]

Windows people, can you test this one?

Warning: incompatible with other versions

pyrogenesis.exe

[Stan`]

@Angen reverted back to

rP25707 New pikemen small shields.

No running towards the enemy, but still towards the initial formation (I think that's fine)

I've tried to play around with 

SetMemberOfFormation(controller);

If I set it to INVALID_ENTITY formation doesn't run at all.

Could be set in combat or something.

[alre]

1 hour ago, Angen said:

Windows people, can you test this one?

Warning: incompatible with other versions

pyrogenesis.exe 4 MB · 3 downloads

It works good to me, charging doesn't happen anymore. I tried on Altlas everything I could think about moving and formations.

[Silier]

UPDATE
Windows people, can you test this one?

should fix edge cases

Warning: incompatible with other versions

pyrogenesis.exe

[Stan`]

Launching RC4 with above fix, should be available somewhere tomorrow

And with that I think we're done for this version.

[Gurken Khan]

@Stan`Weren't we down to three town structures?

The math seems right as I only have one town structure at that point; but I'd really dislike if we had a wrong number there. I'm on build 25839.

[azayrahmad]

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

@Stan`Weren't we down to three town structures?

The math seems right as I only have one town structure at that point; but I'd really dislike if we had a wrong number there. I'm on build 25839.

Yep, I think the tooltip is wrong there:

[Freagarach]

That is annoying. Especially since fixing it will break string freeze and we must allow translators time to fix it. Luckily the entities to construct is correct, so we can fix it after the release, IMHO.

 

Interesting how that went unnoticed since March,,,

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

21 hours ago, Stan` said:

• Autociv not cancelled when buildings are captured by the AI fixed

Autoqueue? 

[Stan`]

Silly me ;P

[Stan`]

17 hours ago, Stan` said:

In this case it's the opposite. In the video below, units move to the point, detect the enemy, run towards it, kill it, stop there, then run back to the formation controller. My understanding is that the formation controller should move but doesn't.

 

Confirmed that the flag doesn't move triggering the run.

Not a good idea. Else you could have A25 in two years

@Lion.Kanzen
^

[Stan`]

Here is the fourth 'Release Candidate' of Alpha 25 - Yaunā

We've entered Commit Freeze, which means we only now fix Release Blocker issues that we might yet find.

Downloads - Current bundles are for SVN revision 25842

• Linux data and build
• MacOS
• Windows

Things to note:

• Mind your mods -> they might introduce issues or Out Of Sync.
• Save your A24 config file somewhere, ideally.

Notable changes since the last bundle:

• Unit in formation rushing  see above post

What to do if I have an error or notice something weird?

Post your commands.txt (replay) and the interestinglog.html file from your folder. You can also reply to this thread.

What to do if the game crashes?

Update your crashlog.dmp and crashlog.txt  see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

What to do if I have an Out Of Sync?

You should go in your logs folder, find the replay (commands.txt at least), the mainlog/interestinglog and find the OOS dump folder. Zip all these files and upload them here.
We need the reports from two players to compare them: One OOS and one non-OOS players at least should upload their oos_dump files.

Things you may want to test (non-exhaustive)

1. Launch a random game
2. Launch a skirmish.
3. Connect to the lobby
4. Play on the lobby with someone
5. Launch Atlas and try things out there
6. Open Unit tests demo (To see if there any breakage in displaying entity's) (It's in scenarios)
7. Enable feedback and see if it works (Main menu) https://videos.pair2jeux.tube/videos/watch/ca45fa29-c120-487e-af9c-cf52020666ab
8. Connect to and use mod.io
9. Test replaying new games
10. Test Screenshots (F2)
11. Test Big Screenshots (Maj+F2)
12. Test hotkeys
13. Test Saving and loading a game.
14. Test Quickload/Quicksave

And of course playing games.

[seeh]

19 hours ago, Stan` said:

https://youtu.be/maZffCojnHM

1. Launch a random game
2. Launch a skirmish.
3. Connect to the lobby

works no problem

4. Play on the lobby with someone

works as observer (was no open game) at the weekend without errors. today my revision 25842 was to new, not 25840 =>the normal sync errors but no crashes.

5 Launch Atlas and try things out there

i dont understand.

6 Open Unit tests demo (To see if there any breakage in displaying entity's) (It's in scenarios)

some red errors but not explode. every unit test runs, some test without any errors.

7 Enable feedback and see if it works (Main menu) https://videos.pair2jeux.tube/videos/watch/ca45fa29-c120-487e-af9c-cf52020666ab

ups. sorry i did not.

ups. sorry all below i did not tried:

8 Connect to and use mod.io
9. Test replaying new games
10 Test Screenshots (F2)

11 Test Big Screenshots (Maj+F2)

12 Test hotkeys

13 Test Saving and loading a game.

14 Test Quickload/Quicksave

 

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by seeh

[Stan`]

8 minutes ago, seeh said:

some red errors but not explode. every unit test runs, some test without any errors.

Can you upload mainlog? Did you have mods ?

Edit Atlas = map editor

[Lion.Kanzen]

@Stan` How many RC have we already released?